


When I Grow Up

by Hisokany



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Is that tag even necessary he's always pretty, Post-Debut Seventeen, Pre-Debut Seventeen, Pretty Jeonghan, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7691791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisokany/pseuds/Hisokany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long practice, all Jeonghan wanted to do was sleep. Honestly. But sleep is hard to come by when you're worried about the future of a group of lovable idiots. If only there was a way to reassure him that there was nothing to worry about...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Know I'm Still a Child Now

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Let's all pretend that Doyoon, Mingming, Dongjin, and Samuel left super early, and Minghao joined before Jeonghan's hair started to grow out. Quick fic to satisfy a craving for a particular plot.

Jeonghan sighed, looking at his reflection in the practice room mirrors. The rest of the Seventeen trainees were strewn about the room, either groaning from the brutal dance session they had just finished or lying comatose on the floor. He slowly leaned back, hissing when his sore stomach muscles twinged. ‘This is probably the most exercise I’ve ever gotten in my life. I’m not entirely sure this whole “being active” thing is right for me. Maybe I could debut as a floor mat? It would be a new concept.’ 

Thinking about debuting made him anxious though. They’d already lost four members, how will they be able to keep everyone together? Seungcheol already had to come up with a bullshit excuse as to why the group was named “Seventeen” when they only had thirteen members. He was kind of impressed though- he didn’t know Seungcheol could do math. ‘Seungcheol is nice, I shouldn’t be roasting him, even if he can’t hear me.’ 

Laying down at the back of the room, Jeonghan could see all of the members. He saw the clusters that had formed almost as soon as they went on break. It had seemed the years together had allowed each member to burrow a little space for themselves in the group, and they seemed perfectly content. It was just Jeonghan that still felt a little awkward, like he was a puzzle piece that fit, but only at the corner. The only other member that seemed to feel as awkward as himself, if not more so, was Minghao. He was brand spankin’ new, and from China to boot. Jeonghan made a mental note to look out for him- he was older, after all. 

“Hyung! Who’s more handsome, me or Soonyoung?” Seungkwan shouted, strutting across the room with a manically grinning Soonyoung in tow. “I’ve been telling him I’m the handsome one out of the two of us, even Chan said so. Sorry, Seungkwannie.” teased Soonyoung. Seungkwan brushed off his words in true diva fashion, not even sparing him a glance. Jeonghan suddenly found himself the focus of Boo Seungkwan, which while normally a pleasant sort of exhausting, reached a whole new level of tiring when he was this sore. ‘Being exposed to so much sass when I’m vulnerable is dangerous.’, Jeonghan absently thought.

“Jeonghannie hyung, I’m your favorite, right? Tell this mess that he can’t possibly compare.” Seungkwan whined. Jeonghan felt trapped- it seemed like the other members always knew what to say during this moments; they knew how to escape relatively unscathed, with either a witty comment or playful shove. ‘Play to your strengths Jeonghan, salvage as much of your break as possible.’ he desperately thought, thinking of how tired he’ll be if he spent the rest of the break comforting a pouty Seungkwan. 

Suddenly, he knew exactly what to do. He grew up with a sibling, after all.

“When I look at you two all I see are cute kids. Go ask someone your age- Seokmin has only a year difference between the both of you, doesn’t he?” 

Yes, he threw Seokmin under the bus. But as Seungkwan and Soonyoung went to interrogate Seokmin, he couldn’t find it in him to feel guilty. It was survival of the sleepiest, and he was going to spend his break resting, damn it. 

‘ I’ll close my eyes for just a moment, to regain my strength.’ He got himself comfortable on the hard floor, settling on his side and closing his eyes. Just before he managed to slip into a deep sleep (somehow ignoring Hansol, who'd started to rap) he thought about how nice it would be if he could get a sign that everything would work out. Just one, that’s really all he needed.

And then he was asleep.


	2. I Can't Catch Up to You Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you somewhat wish for!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't proof read, and spell check is my lord and savior.

Screams jolted him awake.

Jeonghan blinked slowly, his fuzzy vision not helping him comprehend the situation in the least. Finally, his vision clears and he can clearly see...a boy? 

“How did you...how-” Seungkwan gibbered. 

Seungcheol wasted no time with words, he simply charged at the intruder with a face not unsimilar to a grumpy grizzly. Jeonghan stared in shock, as the unknown boy was taken down.

In fact, he was taken down quite hard. Seungcheol did work out, after all.

Only when the boy was on the floor did his frantic screeching start to penetrate Jeonghan’s haze of shock. 

“HYUNG WAIT STOP- IT’S ME!” the boy was screaming. 

‘Huh, he kind of sounds like Chan. Actually, if I think about it, he kind of looks like Chan too. But not this Chan-more like a mature Chan'. Now that the initial shock was starting to wear off, Jeonghan noticed the others seemed to be glancing between the unidentified boy and the shell shocked Chan still sitting on the floor.

“Don’t call me Hyung, I don’t know you! I’ve never met you in my life-”

“Seungcheol wait let him speak-”

“Hey doesn’t that kid look kinda like Chan-”

“Is he an alien? He just came out of nowhere!”

“It’s me, Chan! I swear Hyung, I swear! Why don’t you recognize me?” the boy screamed, still pinned to the floor. At these words, the entire room stopped talking. They stopped breathing. Heck, their hearts might’ve even stopped beating. In unison, they all turned to look at Chan, the poor maknae still in shock.

“You can’t be me...I’m me!” Chan said, ignoring Jihoon’s “Fucking obviously.”

They all crowded around the ‘looked like a Chan said he was a Chan but is he a Chan’ still struggling under Seungcheol’s thick thighs. 

“I swear I’m Lee Chan! I can’t- I can’t breathe Hyung please-” the boy gasped out.

“Okay, so tell us something only the real Lee Chan would know!” Seokmin said.

“When Jihoon found out his guitar was broken he blamed Soonyoung but it was really Mingyu who broke it!” 

Once again, the room went deathly quiet. 

“Damn.” Mingyu muttered. 

“Mingyu, I’m gonna kick your giraffe ass.” snarled an alarmingly red Jihoon. Joshua didn’t even look at Jihoon when he restrained him, still staring at...Chan? “Only Chan could know that! I only told him! Well, it was more like he saw me break it but it was an accident-” Mingyu exclaimed, leaning away from the homicidal Jihoon.

Jeonghan stood up and cautiously shuffled over to the ring of boys. He paused at the edge, not trusting the newcomer, even if he did look a little like Chan and knew things that could get Mingyu killed. They made eye contact, and the boy’s eyes widened.

“Jeonghan hyung? What happened to your hair? You look-” suddenly the boy stopped. “This is a joke, isn’t? You’re wearing a wig, right?” The room turned to look at Jeonghan, silently asking if Jeonghan had any explanation for what was happening. Unused to the attention of all the members at once, Jeonghan stiffened. 

“Don’t worry about his hair, how did you get her-” a loud popping sound cut Seungcheol off. 

“Holy shit-”

“Another one?”

“This one looks like Hansol!”

And indeed, another boy had miraculously popped out of thin air, looking like an older version of the Hansol who was currently very pale. The Hansol-look-alike looked just as pale.

“What just happened? Seungcheol, why are you on Chan? What’s going on?”, he said.

Seungcheol looked like he just might have been experiencing high blood pressure for the first time in his life, as he looked conflicted over whether to charge the newcomer in a flying tackle or continue to slowly suffocate the Chan impersonator under him. “Hyung! There’s something wrong! I suddenly appeared here just like you, and then Seungcheol hyung tackled me! And, and- and look at Jeonghan hyung’s hair!” the 'not Chan but in fact may actually could be Chan' screeched. 

Once again, Jeonghan found himself under the scrutiny of the whole room. He started to blush a little- what the heck was so interesting about his hair? He had the same style he had when he made it into Seventeen, and he never changed it. So what gives? 

“It’s not just his hair, Jeonghan hyung looks...he looks like he did in our pre-debut days!” 

This was the start of the end, really. Once the Hansol doppleganger gasped that out the entire room broke into chaos. Seokmin started screaming, and eventually Seungkwan joined him. Seungcheol decided that the Hansol look-alike was worth tackling after all, and Jeonghan just closed his eyes. He’d been through a lot today, he thought. He deserved a break- maybe he could listen to the Pikachu song on repeat, that was always fun to sing along to. But the before he could stealthily make his escape out of the room, the pandemonium died down. 

“Look, we don’t know exactly how far, but I think we’re from the future. I know that sounds crazy, but a minute ago you guys definitely did not look like this! Everybody looks so young!” the Hansol double shouted. Calming breaths and a good ten minutes of skeptical arguing made most of them realize that although it shouldn’t be possible, it did seem like the two boys were telling the truth.

“Okay, so you’re from the future, which I still think is a little suspect but whatever. What do we do about this? Are more of you coming?” Seungcheol asked.

“We really don’t kno-”

Once again, a pop sounded throughout the room. 

“ARRRRRRRGH”

It seemed like the Seungkwan from the future had arrived.


	3. I'm Waiting Just For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyungs get worried when their dongsaengs suddenly disappear.

With the way ‘Future Seungkwan’ was screaming, you’d think the Seventeen trainees had been the ones to unexpectedly appear in his practice room. ‘Future Hansol’ rushed up to the screaming boy and tried to get him to calm down.

“Seungkwan! It’s okay it’s just us, stop screaming! I know it’s shock- wait, are you crying?” 

Seungkwan sniffled and hastily wiped his face free of tears. “Y-you guys suddenly disappeared! We didn’t know what to do! All the hyungs are panicking- I think Seungcheol hyung is about to tear the building apart. Where are we? How did I get here?” his volume, which had started off at a normal level, steadily rose.

“Who are these people? I don’t understand!” 

Jeonghan’s head snapped up when he heard the newcomer (Seungkwan from the future was just as loud as the Seungkwan in the present. Past? Is he living in their past? His head hurt a little thinking about it.) mention Seungcheol’s name. So Seungcheol was still in Seventeen in the future? Not that Jeonghan was surprised- Seungcheol worked tirelessly, he wouldn’t give up the group for anything. This brought up the question of whether Jeonghan himself was still in the group- he assumed so, but it would make him feel relieved if one of the future members would just tell him he was, rather than scream about his hair. 

Or even better, if he could see his future self. 

The thought filled him with panic. What if he actually wasn’t with Seventeen? What if he waited and his future self never came? He could imagine it now- the awkward feeling enveloping the room as every trainee’s future self had come but his, and their eyes would settle on him standing alone and he didn’t think he could handle this- 

“I used to look so cute! I’m even cuter now but I haven’t worn this hairstyle since before our debut! Awe, I miss this shirt, I hate that I grew out of it!”

“We debuted? Are we still one of the main vocals?”

“Of course! In the future, we some of the highest notes!”

While Jeonghan was silently having a meltdown, the future Seungkwan had been brought up to speed and was happily chatting with his younger doppleganger. Jeonghan absentmindedly thought Seungkwan had finally met someone who was just as dramatic as him- himself. Glancing at the future Seventeen members -who were being bombarded with questions Jeonghan was too distracted to hear the answers to- he had a sneaking suspicion that there was a reason these particular future Seventeen members appeared in the order they did. It was as if-

“They’re appearing from youngest to oldest.”   
Jeonghan startled, glancing at his side. Jun had somehow popped up next to him, even though Jeonghan could’ve sworn he was poking ‘Future Chan’ a second ago. 

“How did you figure it out?” Jeonghan inquired. 

“It wasn’t hard- Chan is our maknae, Hansol is the second youngest, and Seungkwan is right after him. I guess it’ll be a while before our future selves come, huh?” Jun said. 

Hearing him, most of the boys turned to look at the two, their attention temporarily drawn away from the flustered future members by the news of when their own future clones would potentially appear.

“So the hyungs would be last! Sorry Seungcheol hyung, you’re in last place.” Soonyoung teased. 

Seungcheol whined, exclaiming that since he was the leader his future self should’ve been the first to arrive. When he finally dramatically pouted in silence, Wonwoo took the opportunity to ask a question.

“Wait, if all of our future selves are coming, shouldn’t we call them by different names? It’ll be confusing calling out one name and having two people respond.” 

“You’re right. How about you guys call us by our stage names? We already debuted, so we’re used to responding to them. No one changed their stage name so you already know what they are.” Seungkwan suggested. The majority of the trainees nodded, but Wonwoo (the voice of reason) addressed an obvious problem. 

“Some of us don’t have stage names. I go by my real name…” he trailed off. 

Future Seungkwan frowned, looking slightly upset that he forgot he didn’t use a stage name himself. 

“Okay, so then we’ll just make up names that we can recognize them by!” Future Chan enthusiastically chimed in. (He’s supposed to think of him as ‘Dino’ now, Jeonghan reminded himself.) 

“Great idea, Dino!”

“Thanks, Chan!”

“Alright, just so we don’t forget anyone, who doesn’t have a stage name?” Seungcheol asked. 

Jeonghan, Wonwoo, Mingyu, Joshua, and Seungkwan raised their hands.  
“Wonwoo hyung wears sweaters a lot in the future, so we could call him something that sounds similar to that, like...sweaty?”

“Vernon.”

“Sorry.”

“How about Wontwo? This Wonwoo is Wonone, so Wonwoo hyung could be Wontwo.” Dino suggested. Nods broke out around the room, with Wonwoo vocally expressing his approval at a nickname that also doubled as a pun. 

“I’ll just go by Joshua, and my future self could be Jisoo, since that’s my Korean name.” Joshua said. Again, nods broke out. 

“What about me?” Mingyu asked.

Without missing a beat the Seungkwan from the future said “Mingew. Wait, that’s mean. I’m sorry hyung. It’s true, but I’m sorry.” 

“So I’m guessing his hygeine didn’t get better?” Jihoon asked.

“No. No it didn’t.” Vernon answered, with a far away look in his eyes, probably thinking of all the times Mingyu used him as a human tissue.

“How about Mingtwo?” Dino asked. 

“It’s not very creative, but it does the job.” Soonyoung said.

“As for me, I’ll be Boo.” Future Seungkwan-now Boo- said, with a hand on his hips. Seungkwan gave him a high five. “I make the best decisions!” 

“What about Jeonghan?” Joshua asked. 

Jeonghan had completely forgot that a new name would have to be made for his future self too, and he wasn’t so sure that he wanted them to make it, future or no. He started to say “Absolutely not,” when he was cut off. 

“Cheonsa!” Boo said. 

“What? Why Cheonsa?” Jeonghan asked. His birthday was on October 4th, so he had made jokes about being Seventeen’s angel before but he didn’t do it often. 

“It’s what you introduce yourself as in the future sometimes. You look very different.” Vernon said.   
Jeonghan was about to ask exactly how ‘different’ did he look when he heard another pop. 

“Minghao!” Vernon rushed over to hug the dazed looking boy, with the rest of the future members not too far behind.

After being given the ‘You were transported to our pre-debut days but don’t worry the hyungs are coming soon.’ spiel The8 curiously looked at the room’s occupants. “I remember your long hair Junhui!” he chuckled. Minghao was seated next to him, hungrily looking at the living proof that his current struggles in Korea were worth it. Minghao leaned up to The8’s ear and whispered a question. “Don’t worry, they won’t snitch.” The8 answered. The two shared a look, and the rest of the room shivered. 

“Thughao.” Dino whispered in awe. 

Looking around the room again, The8’s eyes stopped on Jeonghan. “Jeonghan hyung,” he softly said, “You were so different back then.” 

Jeonghan felt odd about being referred to in the past tense, but he felt even stranger being told that he was a different person in The8’s time. ‘Who am I in the future?’, he thought. The rest of the trainees wanted to know the same thing, their curious eyes on him. 

“How is he different?” Mingyu asked. 

“He’s...matured. Confident. We’re all a lot closer in the future, so he’s very comfortable with us. The same thing happened with me.” 

Hearing this made Jeonghan blush horribly, his eyes darting around the room to take in the other boy’s reactions. They all looked eager to see his future self in action, and it honestly felt like waiting for a unicorn. 

Before anymore questions could be asked, a pop was heard. 

“Mingtwo!”

It continued like this for a while, with future Seventeen members popping out of thin air, most of them hysterically crying (Or trying to look like they weren’t.) from having their group members suddenly disappear in their time. Reunions were tearful (Woozi had surprised everyone with his silent tears when he appeared. Jihoon stared down anyone who even looked like they were going to crack a joke at his expense.) and explanations were long. It was an exhausted group of boys that greeted a distressed looking Jisoo, who had popped into the room not long after Jun was given the run down of the situation. 

“Guys! Is everyone okay? We were so worried! I was trying to calm the other two down but I couldn’t and we were the only ones left and now-” he fired off in rapid English, too upset to realize he wasn’t speaking Korean. Vernon quickly stepped in, rubbing Jisoo’s back and quietly explaining to him in English what was going on. Running a hand through his hair, Jisoo let out a troubled sigh. 

“This is amazing, and I’m so relieved everyone is safe, but Seungcheol and Jeonghan were in a really bad state when I left. It was horrible, watching you guys disappear like that. We didn’t know what to think. I hope they get here soon.” he said softly, a worried crease between his brows. The other boys grew somber, thinking about their oldest members running around the dorm, trying to find boys that weren’t there. 

During the entire time Jisoo was speaking, Jeonghan was holding his breath, only remembering to exhale after The8 rubbed his back. The future Seventeen members were very friendly to him, and their younger counterparts watched the interactions with curiosity, wondering exactly how close Jeonghan -one of the newest additions to the group- was to them in the future. Jeonghan himself was so relieved he could cry that the future Seventeen members were so comfortable with him. It was proof that the arm’s length the other trainees seemed to unconsciously hold him at would eventually disappear. 

Seungcheol walked over to him, nervously biting his lip. “I think I would honestly lose my mind if everyone started disappearing around me. I’m glad that there’s someone else with me in the future, even if your future self will appear soon too.” he firmly clapped Jeonghan on the back, an affectionate action Jeonghan hadn’t been on the receiving end of too many times before today. 

Jeonghan gave him an anxious smile. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you won’t be alone long-” a loud pop sounded, and he hurriedly turned to the sound. 

It almost felt as if all the air in the room had turned to water, he couldn’t breathe-

A member from the future was there,

Only,

It was Seungcheol.


End file.
